GRAHAM LINEHAN

We're no good at holidays, the wife and I. We just don't have the knack. We had one good one, early on, but that was a fluke. Everything since then has been a nightmare.

The thing that changed everything for me was the Firefox browser. I was pretty bad when it came to computers - I didn't know how powerful the internet could be until I discovered tabbed browsing.

Conflict is entertaining and it's the stuff of drama - or comedy - but too much conflict, or conflict that's at too high a pitch can get annoying.

The writing of 'The Ladykillers' was fun. But once it goes out of your hands it's not fun, 'especially for someone who is used to being hands-on like me.

So I don't think that the default mode of aggressive interviewing is useful, because politicians just build a defence against it. In fact, they thrive on 'Today' because they know what's going to happen.

I'm not really good at character or plot development. I'm just interested in big comedic moments.

I have to use all these programs that cut off the internet, force me to be bored, because being bored is an essential part of writing, and the internet has made it very hard to be bored.

People tend to group together their favourite sitcoms and feel that they all took place in one spot named 'the past', but in fact all these sitcoms are spread over a long period of time, and all the terrible sitcoms that were on have been justifiably forgotten.

I get contacted daily by people in America saying is there any legal way to download 'The IT Crowd', but the whole mechanism is too rigid to allow for things like that.

Twitter is like - it's like I blinked into existence.

I like shows where the female characters are as funny as the male characters, not just commenting on how funny the male characters are.

I love Larry David's take on things in 'Seinfeld', which is that you shouldn't try to help people because it'll always put you into new situations which are unpleasant.

Father Ted' would be impossible to remake it in America. The whole situation of being Irish and being a priest in Ireland is so different than anything else in America.

There is no 'magic water' that you can rub on a script to make the jokes funnier.

There are some actors who come alive in front of a crowd, and if you've cast it right, there's an energy between cast and audience that can be exhilarating for both parties, then enjoyed by the audience at home.

I used to be a film and music journalist, and wrote for different magazines in the 1990s. I still love music, but the experience destroyed my enthusiasm for film.

I've always been an enormous fan of comic books and anything that captures the real in a surreal environment.

I think all technology should be plug and play. I would say it's easier to set up a blog than it is to change channels on your telly.

I go up to my office and sit down in front of my computer and turn on the internet and then I don't work - that's the end of work for the day.

Part of the job involves thinking about things and eliminating them. You spend a lot of time coming up with ideas that are terrible and hating them and hating yourself.

I'm not very good in the mornings and often stay up late writing, so I get up at about 10am if I'm not on set for the day. I take our dog, Milo, for a walk before having a light breakfast and settling down to write.

I'm a luddite in comparison with some of the people I follow on Twitter, but a nerd in comparison with many people. But I was always a nerd in other terms - always a big Dungeons & Dragons fan, stuff like that.

Facebook was just John the Baptist. Twitter is the real deal.

Writing 'Father Ted' with Arthur Mathews was like being hooked up to a drip full of endorphins.

If you're a good writer, you don't have everybody shouting in every scene.